Summer's Got Us Dusty from the Road
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: A starlight drive is Christine's approach to an unresolved issue of Stephen's.


**Title:** Summer's Got Us Dusty from the Road  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** G.  
**Characters:** Stephen Strange, Christine Palmer.  
**Setting:** Sometime after the events of _Doctor Strange_.  
**Summary:** A starlight drive is Christine's approach to an unresolved issue of Stephen's.  
**Disclaimer:** They belong to Marvel. I'm just playing with them.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompt "Take the Wheel" at Fan Flashworks. Partially inspired by the song "Always On the Outside" by Common Children, which also provided the title.

* * *

It wasn't a date, Christine asserted. It was just dinner with a friend.

Still, whatever it was, it was nice for Stephen.

It was nice to wear ordinary clothes instead of his sorcerer's garb. It was nice to dine in public for once, surrounded by the hum of other people's conversation, rather than eating alone in the silence of the Sanctum. It was nice to talk with a normal person about anything and everything _except_ magic. It was nice to see Christine's smile across the table, her warmth a reminder of everything he wanted to protect.

And it was even nicer after dinner, when Christine suggested that they take a moonlight drive: when he sat in the passenger seat of her car, watching lights flash by in a kind of somnolent contentment, as she steered for the sedate and scenic suburbs of Westchester. They didn't talk then, but simply _feeling_ her beside him was as good as hearing her voice.

Then, to his bemusement, on an empty street in a quiet old neighborhood, she pulled the car up to the curb. As she turned to face him under the dim glow of the nearest streetlamp, her eyes sparkled with something like mischief… and for a brief moment, he was entirely unsure of her intentions.

"You want to drive for a while?"

In spite of himself, Stephen felt his pulse jump.

"What? …Don't tell me you're getting sleepy yet, with all the night shifts you pull."

Christine wrinkled her nose at him, but then her smile faded. Her hands dropped from the steering wheel and into her lap.

"So I was right. You haven't driven since the accident."

Stephen winced and shifted his gaze away, hastily trying to cover his flash of unpleasant surprise at her insight. "It's not like I've needed to."

The excuse was easy. It had been all along.

In the months after the crash, with his hands constantly bandaged from several failed attempts to repair them, naturally he couldn't handle a steering wheel. The once proud and independent doctor was reduced to taking taxi cabs, or accepting a ride from Christine… or even, on a few occasions, from other former colleagues who may have _pitied_ him. It offended his dignity, but it was a necessary evil, and he got used to it. Eventually more so than he should have, he was sure. He told himself he had too much else to deal with, and besides, he wasn't about to go shopping for a new car when all his dwindling funds were being poured into increasingly radical and desperate surgeries.

And after that… well. The very first thing he learned as a sorcerer was how to open a dimensional gateway. From then on, as long as he had a sling ring, he was never more than a few steps away from any location in the multiverse—much less on the surface of the Earth. With that ability, automobiles quickly started to look like archaic wastes of time and effort. Sometimes he could have forgotten they were still a necessity of the ordinary world he now looked in on as if from a distance. It was like being able to simply flick a light switch, while giving not a thought to the long-ago challenges of the caveman striking flint to kindle a fire.

"Maybe it's not about _needing_ to." Christine leaned her head back against the headrest of the driver's seat. She gazed thoughtfully out through the windshield for a long moment before glancing back at him, her expression direct and serious. "Listen. I don't know what kinds of things you have to face now in the life you've chosen… but maybe it would be better to do it without still being hung up on anything from before."

She knew him too well. She had all along.

His shoulders slumping, Stephen smiled ruefully. "Is it that obvious?"

"Probably not to most people." She straightened, suddenly looking just a little anxious. "It's nothing to be embarrassed about, Stephen. What you went through that night—"

—_Pales in comparison to the things I've been through since._

Stephen's scarred hand abruptly closed over Christine's, silencing her. He gave a light squeeze, and then opened the door, stepping out into the night air.

Christine understood. As he took a moment to stretch long limbs that tingled from being folded into the rather small car, she slid over into the passenger seat he had vacated. Her eyes watched him intently as he circled around to claim the driver's seat himself.

As he placed his hands on the steering wheel, he suspected they were shaking from just a little more than the nerve damage. He didn't want even to blink, because he knew behind his eyelids he would see the image of _that night_. The memory of dark water spinning toward him, metal crumpling and glass shattering, a shock of pain that snapped the world to white for an instant before the blackness…

He gave a start as Christine touched his shoulder.

"It's okay." Her voice was soft, her eyes steady. "I'm here. You'll be fine."

Drawing in a deep breath, Stephen slowly nodded.

Of course he would be. This was no twisting cliffside highway in a rainstorm. This was a sleepy suburban street devoid of traffic, with no more menacing curbside obstacles than a few mailboxes and flowerbeds. The weather was clear, and he was acutely focused, a far cry from the arrogant carelessness of his old self.

And most of all, he wasn't alone. He would be alright because he would never let anything happen to Christine.

His heart was in his throat as he slowly, carefully pulled away from the curb; but beneath the flutter of primal anxiety, his brain and muscles easily remembered the routine motions of driving. After a few blocks of travel straight down the road, he began to relax a little—and if he braked just a bit too sharply at stop signs, Christine didn't complain.

Once Stephen had made two laps around the neighborhood, he felt confident enough to pull out onto the highway, almost equally deserted at that hour. The moon was high, and the air carried fresh green scents through the partly open windows of the car. After a while Christine turned on the radio and played the game of old, changing stations in search of a song he _couldn't_ rattle off the artist, album, and year for. The music was not an unsettling distraction, but a low, calming soundtrack to the summer night.

Along the way, Stephen remembered what he had loved about driving after all. Perhaps it was still part of a different world than the one in which he dwelled… but he supposed it would be alright to visit now and then.

It wasn't even distracting when Christine drew close, leaning her head against Stephen's shoulder, and finally nodded off on the way back to her apartment.

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_2019 Jordanna Morgan_


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